Thong Lom Water Project Update and More Water Filters
It has been a bit of a challenge keeping up with the projects and posting our progress in a timely manner. Fortunately, our guests have been a tremendous help in posting lots of pictures to keep our facebook followers in tune with what is going on.
While the Thong Lom got off to a slow start, progress has been going fairly quickly. We are expected to go over budget a little, due to the issue of low rivers this year. In fact some rivers have all but dried up due to climate change. There hasn’t been a drop of rain since our first arrival in November…a first in the 11 year history of our charity. As such, a second dam is being built in a different river, to augment the first dam.
The dam is covered by a bamboo mat while the cement continues the curing process. The pipe in the foreground is temporary to divert the existing until the dam is ready. On top are three compartments, the first consists of large gravel to filter large sediment, the second compartment, with smaller gravel and the third one contains even smaller gravel.
As our small team drove by the village to distribute filters to another village, this caught our eye. The villagers were trenching in order to bury the pipe. It was wonderful to see so many villagers working together and actually having fun, even though the ground was solid clay.
Construction of the water tank. Again, it is great to see so many people working together to prepare the forms for the concrete. The most time consuming part is the tie wire used to tie the metal rods together for support.
The tank is all but complete. The concrete is curing and the cement lids were just poured. A new feature on top of the tank are additional filters…using more small gravel and charcoal in the three partitions. To the bottom is the access to the tank for future maintenance purposes.
A video will be prepared for this project and shared once everything is complete and the official project is handed over to the village, with the handing over of the inaugural pipe wrench.